Your story, be it a novel, screenplay, memoir, or short story, is made up of scenes. And these scenes need to work hard.

Some say that the scene is the most important building block of a story. While I don’t hold with that — many, many things go into a successful story — let’s agree that great scenes are integral to successful stories.

In today’s post, I want to dig into a question I always ask myself as I write any scene: is this scene working hard enough for my story?

Is this scene working hard enough for my story?

What is a scene?

As I often do, I like to start with a definition. What exactly is a “scene?”

Here’s a definition from Wikipedia, taken from classical drama:

A scene is a dramatic part of a story, at a specific time and place, between specific characters.

This definition feels dated to me. In modern writing — especially modern filmmaking — a scene needn’t be entirely limited by time and place. It’s become pretty common for a narrative to skip around, using flashback, inserts, and intercuts to jumble our notion of what constitutes a scene.

For the purpose of this post I’ll propose a slightly different definition:

A scene is a coherent element of narrative which advances plot, deepens understanding, or both, and in which some value shift occurs.

Advancing plot, deepening understanding

In the musical Hamilton, the song “Yorktown” primarily advances the plot, concluding the story arc of the Revolutionary War.

In Les Miserables, Fantine’s “I Dreamed a Dream” song primarily deepens our understanding. It doesn’t really advance the story, but it explains a character and her world.

A scene can, of course, do both at once. Going back to Hamilton, “The Room Where it Happened” combines these ideas, building on character and theme at the same time it evolves the plot and foreshadows much of what is to come.

What’s a value shift?

A “value shift” indicates that the state of play changes somehow. In other words, a scene creates a mood, defines some kind of current state, and then changes that state. This might happen in a single place and time, but what makes it a scene is the value shift itself: a winning hand becomes a losing hand; someone’s confidence is shaken; new evidence comes to light; they fall in love; they betray one another; they find (or lose) the MacGuffin.

In each of the musical examples I gave above, you should be able to identify the value change that occurs.

In “Yorktown” the change is both about Alexander Hamilton’s personal status (from secretary to soldier) and America’s change relative to the British: the world “turned upside down.”

The shift in “I Dreamed a Dream” is subtler. Fantine sings of the world she once had, contrasting it with how life has turned out for her. The shift is there regardless: she sinks deeper into despair.

And the value shift in “The Room Where it Happened” ain’t subtle. This moment fundamentally changes Aaron Burr, as he concludes that he needs “skin in the game” if he wants to impact the world in the way that Hamilton does.

Spotting a lazy scene

One of the most important bits of writing advice I’ve ever learned:

When your story’s about what it’s about, you’re in trouble.

I’m pretty sure this advice comes from Robert McKee in Story. I may be mistaken, but whatever the ultimate source, this is as close to the core of what storytelling is all about as any sentence I’ve ever read. (And by the way, McKee’s book is terrific.)

The lesson is fundamentally about showing, not telling.

Stories and scenes are always more powerful when they dig beneath the action itself, when they hint at or reveal something deeper motivating that action. We expect authors to set up then peel back the layers, revealing hidden needs, wants, desires, fears, conflicts.

Compare the following:

Bob walked to the freezer, grabbed the vodka he always kept there, sat down and knocked back three fingers from the neck. The viscous, burning liquid washing down his throat buried the pain, the perfect wreckage not just of one day, but of his entire life.

That explains the scene, and perhaps we’re sufficiently interested in learning more about the wreckage of Bob’s life and the day that’s led him to drink. I don’t think it’s bad. But it’s flat. We’re not teased or intrigued. Consider this instead:

Bob clawed through the freezer, rooted through boxes of ancient ice cream, tupperwares whose contents he could only guess at. A bead of sweat appeared on his temple despite the cold. Goddamn it, where the hell’s the vodka? If Linda’s taken it again…

See the difference? In the first example, the story sits right there on the surface: Bob reacts to his lousy day by grabbing a bottle of vodka. In the second, Bob is thwarted. He goes on a desperate hunt and we begin to suspect the troubles in his life, along with some potential causes. Placing a barrier and describing it (the mess of old food in the freezer, someone named Linda who steals his liquor) gives us insight into his life without spoon-feeding the reader.

The second version works harder because the scene becomes about more than it’s about.

• What’s made Bob so desperate?
• The contents of his freezer suggests that his home — probably his life — is messy.
• Why does he keep a bottle of vodka in the freezer?
• Bob digs for for the vodka, suggesting that it’s hidden. Why is this?
• What motivates Linda to take the vodka? (Sounds like backstory)
• Is Linda Bob’s wife? Girlfriend? Daughter?

If your scene is about what it’s about — if it isn’t suggesting more than what’s on the surface — that’s a good indication that it could be working harder.

Working hard or hardly working?

So what makes a scene “work hard?”

Scenes work harder when they carry more weight: when they propel plot and theme and character. (And, and, and…) Sometimes at multiple levels.

Here are some of the things I look to advance in every scene:

• Plot
• Character
• World
• Theme
• Backstory
• Conflict

I may not advance every one of these in every scene, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask to shoot for at least three of these per scene. (More on this point in part II of this post.)

If Indigo meets Alexis, we’ve advanced the plot and that’s…fine. If Indigo meets Alexis and they instantly disagree on something, that’s better. We’ve added the spark of dramatic tension and conflict. The scene already carries more weight to explore whatever this story is about. Working harder.

Let’s settle on this version:

1968: Indigo meets Alexis and her friend Kat at an anti-war march. Alexis complains at the stink of Indy’s marijuana smoke and her view that using it reflects poorly on the movement itself. Quoting Sartre, Indy argues that the movement is all about freedom, and accuses Alexis of being “no better than the man.” As he walks away, Kat tells Alexis she thinks Indy’s hot and compares him to Alexis’ ex, Brad.

We have plot. We’ve established a specific world, together with complexity, conflict, motivations, antagonisms, i.e., character. Kat compares Indigo to Alexis’ ex which adds backstory (and may signal even more conflict). Is Alexis about to repeat a mistake she’s made before? We might be establishing our theme. Each aspect adds something to the scene and makes it work a little harder.

Importantly, the conflict engenders value shifts: our couple have met, they’ve argued, there’s potential rivalry, etc.

Hard work ≠ more elements

Please don’t imagine that simply piling on more and more elements equals “scene works harder.” Lots of ingredients may make great stew, but lousy sashimi. You need to understand the dish you’re cooking. Sometimes a single element, carefully selected and placed, may carry forward all the aspects of a hard-working scene.

Alice sees Wendy at a party, but can’t get up the nerve to introduce herself. She watches as Wendy takes a pill.

That single element, “Wendy takes a pill” opens up a lot of potential. Is Wendy on drugs? Does Alice assume she’s on drugs? Maybe it’s a beta blocker. Or Ritalin. Or a freakin’ Tic-tac. Wendy’s action and Alice’s reaction potentially expose a lot about plot, character, and theme, exposing information about Alice, Wendy, their world, their respective backstories, and potentially their emerging conflict.

The tiny uncovered details in this very simple scene can drive it to work harder, revealing mountains within a molehill.

We work when we dig.

Dig it?

I’ll follow this post up with a part 2, getting into some specific tools and techniques I use to make scenes work harder.

What do you think? Do you have special tools you use to make your scenes work harder? Tell me about them in the comments.

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